I have been selected to return to TEDGlobal as a TED Fellow this summer in Oxford, UK. It was two years ago when I first spoke on the TED stage and I will return with a short talk about my experiences over the last two year as well as talk about my earlier life. I'm so excited to return to Oxford, too, where I visited briefly last summer. It's hard to believe how much my life has changed for the better since the first TEDGlobal in Arusha, Tanzania. I'm joining 24 amazing fellows from around the world, including the founder and CEO of African Leadership Academy where I now attend school. Watch a video about the TED Fellows program here.
TED
CONFERENCES ANNOUNCES 25 TED FELLOWS FOR TEDGLOBAL IN OXFORD
TED
Fellows program brings outstanding, world-changing leaders to participate in
TED community
NEW YORK, May 26, 2009 Organizers of the TED Conference
introduced today the 25 new TED Fellows who will participate in TED's annual
international conference, TEDGlobal. These Fellows have been invited to join the
TED community by attending TEDGlobal 2009, to be held in Oxford, UK, July
21-24. The 25 TEDGlobal Fellows join the 40 TED Fellows selected for the
TED2009 Conference, held in February in Long Beach, where the TED Fellows
program was announced. The principal goal of the TED Fellows program is to
empower TED Fellows to effectively communicate their work to the TED community
and to the world.
The 2009 TEDGlobal Fellows comprise an eclectic
group of individuals from Bahrain to Argentina to Malawi, and from Jamaica to
the Philippines. These innovators represent diverse disciplines — technology,
entertainment, design, science, film, art, music, entrepreneurship and the
nonprofit world. TEDGlobal Fellows include doctors, writers, political
scientists, artists and dancers. One is a magician, one an inventor, one a
humanitarian Jesuit priest. All are committed to the spread of great ideas.
“From a leading female Kenyan software developer
to a young political scientist from Belarus, from a Jamaican robotics expert to
a next-generation Burmese human rights activist, we couldn’t be more thrilled
with our inaugural TEDGlobal Fellows,” said Tom Rielly, TED Community Director.
“We look forward to their collaborations with each other and with members of
the TED community, following the example of the post-conference activities of
our 40 brilliant TED Fellows from TED2009 in Long Beach.
In addition to participating as full members of
the TEDGlobal conference audience, each TED Fellow will participate in a
two-day pre-conference, where they will receive world-class communication
training, deliver a short TEDTalk, and collaborate with their peers, among
other benefits. Their TEDTalk may
be selected for posting on TED.com, where it has the potential to be viewed
hundreds of thousands of times. They will also participate in the TED community
throughout the next year, by telling their ongoing stories on the TED Fellows
blog, being featured in the online Fellows directory and participating in a
private social network.
Later this year, TED will choose 20 of this year’s TED and TEDGlobal Fellows to be TED
Senior Fellows. They will participate in five additional conferences, for a
total of six over a course of three years, with additional benefits.
The TED Fellows program seeks individuals 21-40
(though anyone 18 and over can apply) with demonstrated remarkable achievement
in their field of endeavor. The program focuses on candidates from five
regions: Asia/Pacific, Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Middle
East. The TED Fellows program is made possible by the visionary support of the
Bezos family, Sherpalo Ventures, the Harnisch Foundation, the Case Foundation,
private donors and Nokia.
Esra’a Al Shafei (Bahrain)
— Blogger; founder, MideastYouth.com, an interfaith online network for
Middle Eastern youth
Xavier Alpasa, SJ (Philippines) — Social entrepreneur; pastor;
director, Loyola College Culion; founder, Rags2Riches, a business bridging the
marginalized and fashion worlds
Rachel Armstrong, MD (UK) — Physician; science-fiction author;
teaching fellow researching living architecture
Nassim Assefi, MD (US/Iran/Turkey/Afghanistan) — Physician;
novelist; global women’s health specialist
Frederick Balagadde, PhD (Uganda/USA) — Research scientist, Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory; co-inventor of the microchemostat, a medical
diagnostic chip
Michelle Borkin (US) — 3D
visualization researcher; astronomer; applied physicist, Harvard
Constanza Ceruti, PhD (Argentina) — High-altitude archeologist/anthropologist
specializing in Incan ceremonial sites
Candy Chang (US/Finland) — Cross-disciplinary design specialist; public
installation artist; urban planner
Jessica Colaço (Kenya) — Researcher; mobile technology
evangelist; blogger
Shereen El Feki, PhD (Canada/UK/Egypt) — Journalist; academic; writer
working to develop a dialog between Arabic and non-Arabic speakers
Gabriella Gómez-Mont (Mexico) — Founder, Tóxico Cultura, an
independent cultural project and think tank in Mexico City
Jonathan Gosier (US/Uganda) — Founder, Appfrica, an organization
nurturing and investing in East African software startups
Peter Haas (US/Haiti/Guatemala) — Founder, Appropriate Infrastructure
Development Group, bringing appropriate technology to the developing world;
tinkerer
Meklit Hadero (Ethiopia/US) — Singer;
musician; resident artist, Red Poppy House; founding member, Arba Minch
Collective
Marvin Hall (Jamaica) — Founder, Halls of Learning, an organization educating
Jamaican youth in areas including robotics and animation
William Kamkwamba (Malawi/South Africa) — Student, African
Leadership Academy; inventor
V.K. Madhavan (India) — Executive director, Central Himalayan Rural Action
Group, a group specializing in rural agricultural development
Evgeny Morozov (Belarus/US)
— Blogger; writer; political scientist looking at how the Internet
influences civic engagement and regime stability
Naomi Natale (US) — Founder, One Million Bones and the Cradle Project, socially
focused large-scale art installations
Alexander Petroff (US/Democratic Republic of the Congo) —
Founder, Working Villages International, an organization building sustainable
villages in the DRC
Zoya Phan (Burma/UK) — Exiled Burmese human-rights activist; author
Seth Raphael (US) — High-tech magician; founder, X-Pollinate, an
interdisciplinary team of innovators
Nuhu Ribadu (Nigeria/UK) — Exiled Nigerian anti-corruption pioneer; lawyer
Fred Swaniker (Ghana/South Africa) — Founder, African Leadership Academy, a
secondary school for the next generation of African leaders
Benji Zusman (US) — Filmmaker;
scientist; co-founder, CURIOUS, a multi-disciplinary production collective
Details on each Fellow and the program are
available at www.ted.com/fellows. To support the program or for more information,
please contact Logan McClure at +1 212.346.9333 or via email at
fellows@ted.com. Follow the TED Fellows blog at tedfellows.posterous.com.
About TED:
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started in
1984 as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since
then, its scope has broadened to include science, business, the arts, and the
global issues facing our world. The annual conference now brings together the
world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the
talk of their lives — in 18 minutes. Attendees have called it “the ultimate
brain spa” and “a four-day journey into the future.” The diverse audience —
CEOs, scientists, creatives and philanthropists — is almost as extraordinary as
the speakers, who have included Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Sir
Richard Branson, Philippe Starck, Isabel Allende and Bono.
TED was first
held in Monterey, California, in 1984. In 2001, Chris Anderson's Sapling
Foundation acquired TED from its founder, Richard Saul Wurman. In recent years,
TED has expanded to include an annual international conference, TEDGlobal;
media initiatives, including TEDTalks and TED.com; and the TED Prize. TEDGlobal
2009, “The Substance of Things Not Seen,” will be held July 21-24, 2009, in
Oxford, UK. TEDIndia will be held in Mysore, India, Nov. 1-4, 2009. TED2010,
“What the World Needs Now,” will be held Feb. 9-13, 2010, in Long Beach,
California, with a simulcast event in Palm Springs, California. For details on
all upcoming conferences and events, visit www.TED.com.
